E-mail, Feeds, 'n' Stuff

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Dude, you're all like busted

One of the mentally ill people who roam Portland streets at night spray painting and writing their inane "tags" on other people's property has been taken into custody. He's a 19-year-old kid, probably from the 'burbs, apprehended, apparently in broad daylight, last Wednesday. He's been writing "Glimpse" on things. If he's victimized you, you might want to contact the city's graffitti prevention coordinator (503-823-5860) to make sure he or his dad pay you for the damage.

Work took me to New Mexico for a few years. While I was there Albuquerque passed a law making parents financially liable for graffiti then started going after those parents. Not suprisingly, the instances of tagging dropped dramatically. Portland should do the same.

That's the demographic. Most taggers are white males between 15 and thirty who are typically under-achievers from upper middle class families.

I'm talking about the ones that always write the same stuff, usually some pseudonym like "spore" or "dub" or "loser". They get a type of adrenaline high when they do it, which is rather like any other substance addiction. Attempts to provide "legal walls" for them to paint are largely ineffective, because it is doing it illegally that provides the rush.

I had occasion to study this carefully a decade ago when a friend's son was arrested for graffiti. The initial charge was criminal mischief in the 1st degree, a felony. A good attorney (and five thousand bucks) got it knocked down to a misdemeanor and the kid did 100 hours community service and probation. As far as I know, that cured him of his graffiti addiction.

In Multnomah County, "probation" usually means "community corrections", which translates into calling into an electronic answering machine once a month. And if you fail to do so, it may take months for them to follow up in person.

That's right crime victims: under the remote chance they catch the perpetrator your property crime, and the D.A. has the audacity to prosecture, those found guilty suffer the indignity of dialing a robo-probation phone number to self-report.

Not only is it undiplomatic and perhaps even a bit politically incorrect to lump taggers in with the mentally ill, it's an insult to folks with mental illness: I can't imagine that anyone worth knowing, sane or not, would want to be associated with those idiots.

We once had a metal-sided west-facing house on an unshaded hill that had a lot of peeling paint. I got an idea to sponsor a graffiti competition, where 10 parties would be invited to spray my house consecutively, and the neighbors would vote on the best artist, who would get a cash prize. And my house would get 10 coats of spray paint and might not peel for a while.

To my surprise, neither my family nor any of the neighbors were interested in helping out on the project, except the dancer next door. The idea died.

I wonder if the graffitti control machine has ever contemplated a graffitti competition as a means to let people work out their obsessions meaningfully..

Gaye, I've watched similar situations. The idea is great, but usually anybody with the talent you're seeking doesn't have this sort of compulsion. The graffiti artists you're seeking know they have talent, and they're usually perfectly willing to ask permission to cover an entire wall. Hell, a lot of people are willing to pay them for the privilege: I once spent an afternoon watching an absolutely incredible artist turn an entire building into a traffic-stopper of an art display.

Sadly, if he's like the others I've known, this twerp has no discernable talent other than for turning water into urine. He's tagging "Glimpse" because marking locales like a tomcat isn't visible from the back seat of his mom's car. If he could pee paint, though, he probably would.

Road Work

Miles run year to date: 155
At this date last year: 241
Total run in 2015: 271
In 2014: 401
In 2013: 257
In 2012: 129
In 2011: 113
In 2010: 125
In 2009: 67
In 2008: 28
In 2007: 113
In 2006: 100
In 2005: 149
In 2004: 204
In 2003: 269